Women and economic evolution: or, The effects of industrial changes upon the status of women

by Theresa Schmid McMahon

It is true many women resist the removal of all productive industry from the home to the factory, but it is like resisting a glacial movement down a mountain side. The home must adapt itself to the change to save itself. When the home no longer possesses economic value, when marriage “means a doubling of expense and the halving of income, the accountability of one person for the welfare of another, and the certainty of no resource if the sole wage earner falls by chance into the abyss of the unemployed,” people will not so readily enter into a relation which involves so great a responsibility and sacrifice.[115]

The number of marriages is decreasing, but the number of married women following professional pursuits is also increasing. If men are more timid than formerly in assuming matrimonial ties, or if women show as great a timidity in entering into a relation that promises hardships arising out of their complete economic dependence, the progress married women are making in the skilled industries and other lines of work compatible with their conception of their social status, will prove a large factor in restoring confidence in the mutual helpfulness made possible by marriage and tend to check the decrease of the marriage-rate.

The decline of the birth-rate is a more serious problem. A large infant mortality prevails the world over and no effective means have been found to prevent this great sacrifice of life. Indeed the decrease of the birth-rate is comparatively small when compared with the waste of life by infantile diseases. If only some means were found to prevent this waste the decrease in the birth-rate would be one more illustration of the great economy in pain and suffering achieved by an advanced civilization. The real alarming thing is not a general decrease in the birth-rate but a decrease applying to the better social classes alone. The latter are made up of individuals who have enjoyed the advantages of our social institutions. If their superiority can be traced to their natural superiority rather than to their opportunities, made possible by their economic status, there exists genuine reason for alarm; but if humanity after all is much alike the world over, and the differences between types are due to opportunity, no better means can be found to meet the problem than by affording a wider diffusion of the benefits of a higher civilization. To bring this about cities must be made sanitary places in which to live and extreme poverty must be eliminated from the child’s environment.

The decrease of the importance of women’s work in the home is not alone responsible for the changes in their status but also the modern close intercommunication of cosmopolitan groups made possible by modern industrial methods in the business world. The close relations existing between individuals and groups of individuals who have not always lived in the same environment, or the same kind of an environment stimulates many new desires and human faculties which might have remained dormant were the individual shut off from the close relations with the outside world.

One of the results of this interaction is a disregard for the social barriers of the past, and a leveling of educational and social opportunities so that they are within the reach of a constantly increasing number of men and women alike.

A desire for invidious distinction is a marked motive in man. He desires to excel others, at least those in his class, in the pursuits which give precedence in the eyes of others. If he has not the financial means at hand to excel with a degree of ease, he will make every possible sacrifice to maintain at least the standards of the class with which he is associated.

When the family was a close economic unit, and high class barriers existed there was little opportunity for mutual stimulation. The natural characteristic of responsiveness to suggestion was held in check by the customary standards of one’s class. Such is not true under the factory regime. The individual has access to any class so far as his economic resources and leisure permit. Hence a free play of the imitative faculty, which often takes the form of a blind imitation of the recognized superior in invidious distinction—the accepting of standards from the class above irrespective of their merits.

This is especially characteristic of women and is given expression in expensive dress, furniture, and ability to purchase services. Women show the imitative faculty to a greater degree than men for they have more leisure. Leisure above all things is most conducive to the development of desires suggested by the plane or expenditure of the class above.

The development of industry has created a vast amount of new wealth, and women more than men have profited by the great increase of productivity. Their leisure is being increased rapidly and when their men-folk are prosperous they can afford to gratify wants without taking into consideration their ultimate good. Hence women of leisure tend to form a procession of imitators, each according to her inclinations and financial standing.

The initiative faculty is a virtue when appealed to by progressive social ideals, but is a menace when it signifies an insane procession of clothes, mission furniture or oriental rugs. It is then the stuffy flat in the heart of the city is preferred to the cottage in the suburbs. In some, this inclination to follow fashion seems to grow with the increased means of communication. A childlike faith that good models will be imitated rather than bad ones is akin to the laissez faire philosophy that has so ignominiously failed. It is of the utmost importance that social ideals should be consciously molded.